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January 11, 2004
Samuel, the Example of Youth to Adults
Samuel, the Example of Youth to Adults
Psalm 2 / I Samuel 2: 11-20
I Timothy 4: 7b-16
January 11th, 2004
This morning I want to speak to you about a theme with built-in paradox to it. On the one hand we are taught to respect the wisdom that comes with age. But on the other hand, we read Paul’s words to the young man, Timothy. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example.”
Often we adults will piously remind one another that it is important to set a good example for the younger generations, but really, isn’t it true that we watch you young folk more than you watch us? How many young people go to sports arenas to watch old men and women play basketball? How many young people go to the mall to buy clothes like grandma and grandpa wear? Experience has something to teach but in the more visible aspects of life, the looking is mostly one way, from the older to the younger.
Apparently it’s been this way a long time, so Paul tells Timothy that in the inward aspects of life, in the place where faith and character grow, “Be an example.”
One of the oddities of the prosperous Western world is the way we who are getting older try to do away with the outward evidence. Hair can be implanted into bald scalps and gray hair can be changed to black or brown, red or blond, and only your hairdresser will know, well maybe! Tummy tucks, face creams, and fitness factories are available to banish the effects of time. But none of this satisfies us. We were made for more than taut tummies.
Time can be an enemy, not just in the weakening effects of aging, but in the gathering ill effects of unexamined thoughts and habits. In all the looking of the old toward the young I think we see a parable unfolding. Something has been lost inwardly that we know we need to recover. We’d like to be able to start again, so we look to the young. Some parents try to live their youth again through their children. (They are the bane of little league umpires—I can tell you from experience.)
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” Set a good example in inward things with outward effects—in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
We give a lot of attention to the eroding effects of time on our bodies, but time has a worse eroding effect on inward aspects of life. We are more apt to notice the outward changes than the inward changes. Good manners become hostage to casual ways that are more often self-serving than thoughtful of others. We develop abrupt ways of speaking to each other. A husband and wife who once spoke to each other affectionately, gradually changed their tone of voice. Familiarity bred contempt.
Love, an out-flowing power, changes to self-interest. Faith becomes commercialized and politicized. One of the most poignant words in the Book of Revelation is Jesus speaking to the Church at Ephesus. “I know your works, your toil and patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles . . . but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The effects of this loss are widespread. How intentional is your behavior to someone you love. How casual you are to those for whom love has been lost.
It is often the case that those who are casual in their ways with God are casual in their ways with other people—and vice versa. The reason why the two great Commandments are given with love for God and love of your neighbor together is because we cannot love God whom we have not seen if we don’t love our brother (or sister) whom we see. Our ways with each other and our ways with God are of one piece.
Last Sunday and this we have read the beginning of the story of Samuel who became a great prophet and kingmaker for Israel. What has crystallized in my mind in looking at the early story of Samuel is that when God needed to reshape His peoples’ character, after it had been in the Promised Land a while, He took a little boy and set him before Israel. All eyes were drawn to little Samuel. His life began in an unusual way in order for people to notice him. It’s as though God said to little Samuel, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example.”
Samuel comes onto the scene in a remarkable way. When he was still a young fellow, according to Jewish tradition he was only two years old, he was brought to live in the home of Israel’s high priest, Eli.
It was a terrible place for a little boy to grow up. Eli had two sons who developed into scoundrels. Little Samuel watched these two young men day after day. Because they were born into the high priestly family, their careers were set. They were priests by birth so they would do the work of priests. Their work was holy. But see how they did their sacred work. They insulted the people who came to offer sacrifices to God. They cut off the best steaks from sacrificial animals, treating them as nothing more than a free source of gourmet eating. They used their influence to seduce the women who came to Shiloh on pilgrimage. How could this ever have happened? A drift away from the hallowed ways of earlier times.
I wonder about this. A conspicuous subplot in the story of Eli’s home is the absence of any mention of the mother. Where was the mother in this home? How often homes where the mother takes a strong lead do the children turn out well. Samuel’s mother is remembered as one of the great mothers of history, along with Timothy’s mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois.
But we know nothing about the mother of Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s two sons. Perhaps the very absence of a noteworthy mother in this home sends an eloquent and plaintive message about the importance of mothers who love God and love their children. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of mothers to a good start in life for children—and so for the on-going life of a people.
Eli, the father, clearly did not connect with his sons. He may have taught them the mechanics of offering sacrifices, but he left their hearts unaffected. Or, perhaps was there an insidious side to Eli too that the sons saw? We don’t know, but we cannot help but wonder why scripture tells us nothing of their mother. Is this a significant part of the untold story? What a home for little Samuel to come to after being separated from his mother!
I remember how C.S. Lewis summarized his stay in boarding school after his mother died, “Life at a vile boarding school is . . . a good preparation for the Christian life, that it teaches one to live by hope.” Maybe Samuel learned hope from the bad environment in Eli’s home.
One of the curious aspects of the story is how these two miserable sons of Eli seem to have changed the very nature of worship. When we read of the layout of the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus, it bears little resemblance to what we see in Shiloh. In Exodus we see that the sacrifices were offered on an altar in the courtyard inside the fence of the Tabernacle. The altar was elevated and the priests needed steps to reach the top. It had horns on the corners, symbolic of laying hold on God in prayer.
But in I Samuel we read of no altar, only of various kinds of cooking vessels into which pieces of the sacrificial victims were put. We read of pans, kettles, caldrons, and pots. What happened to the altar? These young men changed the furniture of the Tabernacle to separate choice cuts of meat so they could choose what they desired for their menu.
They had a right to eat from the sacrificial meat, but they demeaned worship, stripping away its purpose. It is a warning to us all in my line of work to keep before us that it is not just a way to make a living.
The sons of Eli had a tragic end. Their bad example was snuffed out and their lives became only a distant memory, while little Samuel went on to a life of service to Israel. When the people could no longer look to Eli and the priesthood for guidance, their eyes were drawn to Samuel. Little Samuel was to play a big role in the life of God’s people. When Samuel had to look for a new king to replace an older king whose life had gone awry, he looked for a boy. He found David, a shepherd boy tending the sheep.
Timothy in the New Testament is like Samuel in the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul looks to him as a young man to provide an example. Perhaps already the elders, the older leaders in the church, were failing in their example. The point of all this is not that there is little value to our example who are older.
Indeed, as I wrote in our last Faith Family News, I have learned much from the example of a number of old people. Carl Henry was a wonderful example to me of life-long pursuit of faithfulness to God. Indeed, I hope that all of you who are older will accept the mantel of spiritual responsibility, making choices that provide a strong influence to us all.
But there is a freshness to youth, an attractiveness, a freedom from habits long-formed that take away idealism. I would like to say to you who are young, we are watching you for more than you realize. This is not a weakness in us. It is how God shaped the generations. Jesus set His example as the Author of our Faith by the time He was thirty years old.
The message we hear from society --youth is the time to kick up your heels, to sew your wild oats. Weekends are to be exploited for whatever your peers say is fun. I don’t begrudge the delights of youth. I wish you happiness. But there is a deeper aspect to your life than this. The habits you form now will stay with you. The tendency of your thoughts now will pursue you. And we older folk need your good example:
Let me remind you of the words of an old man, somewhat cynical from the barrage of time.
Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw nigh when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’ (Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut, when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.)
Youth is a great gift to us all. We get rhapsodic about the “golden days in the springtime of our happy youth.” Do not waste these years. They are for more than for fun and education. Set a good example for us who are older and need refreshment.
But let me remind you who are more in my bracket of time the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Even the young shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”
Let us pray: O Lord, as we face the mystery of life, the zest of youth, the wisdom but weariness of old age, we ask for your wisdom to be ours, to use each stage of life you offer us so as to live for your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at January 11, 2004 09:30 AM